Payara Server Domain Backup

Oracle GlassFish 3.1.x had a built-in automatic backup facility using the asadmin command create-backup-config. This allowed you to specify a schedule for when to backup, where to place the backed up file, and how many backups to keep.

This is no longer present in GlassFish Server 4.1.x or Payara Server, since it was a commercial feature that was never open-sourced, but its effects can be reproduced without much effort using the backup-domain command and some scheduling software (crontab, for example)

Since the domain directory is where all of the user configuration of Payara Server Enterprise is kept, we can consider this to be separate to the installation files that Payara Server uses to run the app server itself. We can backup the domain using the asadmin backup-domain command as follows:

asadmin> backup-domain --backupDir /path/to/backup/directory myDomain

The effect of this command is to create a full backup of the domain directory. To complete the command, however, the domain must be stopped first. This will mean that any application deployed to the DAS is unavailable while the backup takes place.

The resulting ZIP file will be saved in a destination with this structure:

<backupDir>/<domain-name>/<domain-name>_<yyyy_mm_dd>_v<backup_number>

Where the backup number is a consecutive integer representing how many backups of the domain have been made.

The job of running this backup command on a given schedule and managing the resulting backed up files needs to be done by a script external to Payara Server Enterprise.

You can get more details of the backup operation by using the --long argument when running the command like this:

asadmin > backup-domain --backupDir /opt/backups/ --long domain1

Backed up domain1 at Wed Sep 13 16:49:53 COT 2017.

Description               : domain1 backup created on 2017_09_13 by user payara
GlassFish Version         : Payara Server  4.1.2.173 #badassfish (build 24)
Backup User               : payara
Backup Date               : Wed Sep 13 16:49:53 COT 2017
Domain Name               : domain1
Backup Type               : full
Backup Config Name        :
Backup Filename (origin)  : /opt/backups/domain1/domain1_2017_09_13_v00002.zip
Domain Directory          : /opt/payara/glassfish/domains/domain1

Command backup-domain executed successfully.

See Also